Historically, accountants have developed,
through experiments and inscriptions, discourses
sustaining a particular set of practices, which make
various claims, such as objectivity and universal-
ity. For example, accountants have specified a set
of ‘‘good practices’’ in relation to performance
measurement. Here, we would include knowledge
about controllability, quantitative measurement,
and the value of comparing against a standard or
norm. In contrast, competitor occupations such
as program evaluators have sought to anchor their
claims to expertise to a literature that emphasizes
the development of tailored measures of perfor-
mance. Accountants’ claims can also be contrasted
to the tacit and un-formalized claims to specialized
knowledge and experience that managers may
make about how to assess performance.